The Prohibition era in America, which lasted for well over a decade and—inconceivable as it might be today—effectively banned the sale and production of booze in the United States, ended with the ratification of the 21st Amendment on Dec. 5, 1933.

Topic: Yuri Kozyrev

Afghanistan’s mountains are rich in untapped minerals that could prove to be a blessing — and a curse. TIME sent contract photographer Yuri Kozyrev to photograph the country with a mineral wealth worth as much as $1 trillion.

Having covered the Arab Spring since 2011, Yuri Kozyrev returned to Egypt in the first days of July — on assignment for TIME — to capture the abrupt, almost neck-snapping changes that exploded in Cairo after the ousting of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

Throughout 2012, TIME’s unparalleled photojournalists were there. At a time when so much hangs in the balance, bearing witness can be the most essential act — and that’s what we do. Here’s the best of our commissioned photojournalism from 2012.

TIME contract photographer Yuri Kozyrev and editor-at-large Bobby Ghosh traveled to southern Abyan province in Yemen for this week’s cover story in TIME International. Here, Ghosh recounts their travels with a Yemeni Central Security Force (CSF) patrol through territory plagued by al-Qaeda.